Shooting blamed on Loyalist feud

A man shot dead today as he arrived at work in Belfast may be the fourth murder victim in a month-long feud between loyalist paramilitary groups, police said.

Michael Green, a 42-year-old delivery driver from Ballysillan in north Belfast, was shot several times just after 8am after he got off his motorcycle to open up the furniture store where he worked.

At least two men shot the father of three at close range outside the store in the Protestant Sandy Row neighbourhood, which is near Belfast's city centre. He died at the scene of the shooting.

Police suspect the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is behind a series of recent killings linked to a feud with the rival Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF).

Unionists have warned that the UVF will not rest until it has wiped out the LVF, which it accuses of terrorising people on housing estates through drug dealing.

Tension between the groups has been simmering since the LVF leader Billy Wright, known as "King Rat", and his associates were stood down by the UVF in 1996 following the sectarian murder of the Catholic taxi driver Michael McGoldrick.

Last month UVF paramilitaries forced several families linked to the LVF from their homes on Garnerville estate, east Belfast.

The Ballysillan area, where Mr Green lived, is an LVF stronghold. Detective superintendent George Hamilton, of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, declined to comment when asked whether Mr Green was an LVF member, Reuters reported.

Det Supt Hamilton told a news conference that police were investigating links between his killing and the feud. Twenty people have been arrested in relation to the feud and 10 people have been charged; police say they have carried out some 90 searches during investigations.

All four of Northern Ireland's loyalist paramilitary groups are supposed to be observing ceasefires in support of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. But there have been five bloody feuds since 2000, when hundreds of convicted militants were freed from prison as part of the 1998 peace deal.

Today Sandy Row residents expressed their shock at the latest killing. One local, who asked not to be named, told the Belfast Telegraph: "People are saying that this is part of the loyalist feud - the whole thing is getting out of control ... it's scary to see this sort of thing happening on your doorstep."

Michael McGimpsey, an Ulster Unionist assembly member for South Belfast, said: "Everybody in this area is disgusted by this," the paper reported.